The Visit - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Visit is a 1956 tragicomic

Tragicomedy

Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...

play by Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire...

Plot summary

The story opens with the town of Guellen (which literally means "to manure") preparing for the arrival of famed millionairess Claire Zachanassian. The town is in a state of disrepair, and the residents are suffering considerable hardship and poverty. They hope that Claire, a native of the small town, will provide them with much-needed funds. Alfred Ill, the owner of Guellen's general store and the most popular man in town, was Claire's lover when they were young, and agrees with the Mayor that the task of convincing her to make a donation should fall to him. As the town gathers at the railway station to prepare for Claire's arrival, they are met with an unexpected surprise when Claire steps off of an earlier train, having pulled the emergency brakes in order to do so. She is grand, grotesque, and fantastic, and is accompanied by two henchmen, her husband, a butler, and two blind eunuchs, along with a coffin, a caged black panther, and various pieces of luggage. She begins a flirtatious exchange with Ill, and they promptly revisit their old haunts: Petersen's Barn and Konrad's Village Wood. Ill pretends to find her as delightful as ever, though they are both now in their sixties and significantly overweight. Claire draws Ill's attention to her prosthetic leg and artificial hand.

After settling into the Golden Apostle Hotel, Claire joins the rest of the town, who have gathered outside for a homecoming celebration. A band plays, gymnasts perform, and the Mayor gives a speech. Claire takes the opportunity to announce that she will make a donation of one billion units of an unspecified currency, half for the town and half to be shared among the families. The townspeople are overjoyed, but their happiness is dampened when Claire's Butler steps forward to reveal her condition. The Butler was once the Lord Chief Justice of Guellen, and had overseen the paternity suit that Claire had brought against Ill in 1910. In the suit, Ill had produced two false witnesses (who have since been transformed into Claire's eunuchs), and the court had ruled in his favor. Ill went on to marry Matilda, who owned the general store, and Claire moved to Hamburg and became a prostitute and her child died after one year. She declares to the townspeople that she has come to Guellen to prove that justice can, indeed, be bought. Her donation is conditional on someone killing Alfred Ill. When the Mayor refuses, the town cheers in support, but Claire states rather ominously, "I'll wait."

Ill feels generally confident about his status in the town. However, as time passes, he becomes increasingly fearful as he begins to notice the proliferation of new yellow shoes on the feet of the townsmen, and the fact that everyone seems to be purchasing especially expensive items on credit. He goes to see the Policeman to demand that he arrest Claire for having threatened his life, but the Policeman tells him that the threat is nonsense. Ill then turns to the Mayor, who echoes similar sentiments. Both figures are armed, because Claire's black panther has escaped from his cage and is prowling about the town. This only feeds Ill's fear, since "my black panther" was Claire's pet name for him in their youth. He runs to see the Priest, but the Priest seems to be turning away from him as well, as he effectively ignores Ill's fears and instead draws attention to the magnificent new church bell. Slowly, the standard of living in the town rises, even though the townspeople continue to assure Ill that he is safe. Claire then receives the news that her black panther has been killed, and she has a funeral song played in its memory.

In an effort to escape, Ill heads to the railway station, but finds that, strangely, the entire town is gathered there. They ask him where he is going, and he says that he is planning to move to Australia. They wish him well, again assuring him that he has nothing to fear in Guellen, but Ill grows increasingly nervous nonetheless. The train arrives, but he decides not to board, believing that someone will stop him anyway. Paralyzed, he collapses in the crowd, crying, "I'm lost!"

After some time passes and Claire weds a new husband in the Guellen Cathedral, the Doctor and the Schoolmaster go to see her and explain that the townspeople have run up considerable debts since her arrival. The Schoolmaster appeals to her sense of humanity and begs her to abandon her desire for vengeance and help the town out of the goodness of her heart. She reveals to them that she already actually owns all of properties in the town, and that she is the reason the businesses have been shut down and caused stagnation and poverty for the citizens. The Doctor and the Schoolmaster are horrified at this revelation.

In the meantime, Ill has been pacing the room above the general store, his terror growing as the townspeople buy more and more expensive products on credit. News reporters, having received word of Claire's imminent wedding, are everywhere, and they enter the store to get the scoop on Ill, having heard that he was Claire's lover back in the day. The Schoolmaster, drunk, tries to inform the press about Claire's cruel proposal, but the townspeople stop him. Finally Ill descends the stairs, surprised at the hubbub, but quiet. The reporters clear the room when they hear that Claire has just divorced the man she has just married, and has found a new lover.

After the confusion has cleared, the Schoolmaster and Ill have an honest discussion. The Schoolmaster explains that he is certain that Ill will be killed, and admits that he will ultimately join the ranks of the murderers. Ill calmly states that he has accepted his guilt, and acknowledges that the town's suffering is his fault. The Schoolmaster leaves, and Ill is confronted by the Mayor, who asks whether Ill will accept the town's judgment at that evening's meeting. Ill says that he will. The Mayor then suggests that Ill make things easier on everyone and shoot himself, but Ill refuses, insisting that the town must go through the process of actually judging and then killing him.

Ill goes for a ride in his son's newly-purchased car, accompanied by his wife, Matilda, and his daughter, both of whom are wearing new outfits. As they drive through Konrad's Village Wood, Ill says that he is going to go for a walk through the woods before heading to the town meeting. His family continues on to the movie theater. In the woods, Ill comes across Claire, who is walking with her newest husband. She asks her husband to leave so that she and Ill can speak privately. They reminisce about the past, and make plans for the future. Claire tells Ill that she plans to take his body away in the coffin to a mausoleum in Capri that overlooks the Mediterranean. She also tells Ill that she has never stopped loving him, but that over time her love has grown into something monstrous.

The town meeting is flooded with press, and the town publicly announces their acceptance of Claire's donation. They then go through the formality of a vote, which is unanimous, and the Mayor states that they have Ill to thank for their new-found wealth. The press is then ushered out of the auditorium to enjoy refreshments. The doors are locked, and the lights are dimmed. The Priest crosses Ill, and he is killed by the townsmen. Just as a reporter reappears in the auditorium, the Doctor announces that Ill has died from a heart attack. The reporters gather, and declare that Ill has died from joy. Claire examines the corpse, gives the Mayor his cheque, and leaves the town with Ill's body in the coffin that she brought with her when she arrived in Guellen. Claire boards the train at the railway station, and the visit comes to an end.

Claire Zachanassian

Claire was born with the last name Wäscher, meaning "washer", which may reflect her protaletarian upbringing. In her youth, she was the lover of Alfred Ill, but after becoming pregnant and losing a paternity suit against Alfred, she fled to Hamburg and became a prostitute. In the brothel, she met the old Armenian oil magnate Zachanassian, who fell in love with her. They married, and she became a multi-billionairess, freely contributing to philanthropic endeavors and always creating a sensation with her many marriages. Over the course of the play, we see her wed to Husbands VII–IX.

When the play begins Claire is over sixty years old, with red hair and an artificial leg and hand. She visits Guellen, her hometown, with the intention of buying herself justice. Upon her arrival, she announces to the impoverished townspeople that she will donate the million. The gift, however, will be given only in return for the death of her former lover, Alfred Ill.

Husbands VII–IX (or Moby, Hoby, and Zoby)

Throughout the play, Claire moves through three husbands. "Moby", or Husband VII, is actually named Pedro, and owns tobacco plantations. "Hoby", or Husband VIII, is a German film star she marries in Guellen Cathedral. Shortly after the wedding, Claire's lawyers arrange for a divorce, and she prepares to wed "Zoby", a Nobel Prize-winner.

The staging directions for the play indicate that all three husbands can be played by the same actor.

Butler

The Butler is referred to by Claire as "Boby". It is revealed at the end of Act I that he was once the Lord Chief Justice of Guellen. He left his job there to serve in the Kaffigen Court of Appeals, where Claire approached him with a request that he become her Butler, and offering him a salary that he couldn't refuse.

Roby and Toby

Roby and Toby are former Manhattan gangsters who were facing death by electric chair before Claire paid one million dollars for each petition to have them amnestied and entered into her service. The two men are brutes, and are always chewing gum. Roby and Toby bear Claire's sedan-chair and perform songs on the guitar whenever they are commanded to do so.

Koby and Loby

Koby and Loby's real names are Jacob Hühnlein (which means chicken) and Ludwig Sparr, respectively. Alfred Ill bribed the two men to commit perjury in Claire's paternity suit with a liter of schnapps. They falsely testify that they were her lovers. Later, Claire tracked Jacob Chicken down in Canada, and Ludwig Sparr in Australia. Roby and Toby castrated and blinded them, and they are referred to as eunuchs. Koby and Loby tell the press gathered in Guellen for Claire's wedding to Husband VIII that Alfred Ill was once her lover. Claire responds by sending them both to one of her opium dens in Hong Kong.

Ill

Alfred Ill, who runs the general store in Guellen, is considered the most popular man in town (perhaps because he allows the townspeople to purchase items on credit). He is married to Matilda, with whom he has one son and one daughter. The Mayor tells Ill that he is to be his successor in the next election.

In his youth, Ill was the lover of Claire, the multi-millionairess. While the town awaits Claire's visit, the Mayor urges Ill to bank on nostalgia and see if he can convince her to donate funds. However, Ill quickly becomes the target of the townspeople once Claire declares that she will give a generous financial donation to the town only if Ill is murdered. She seeks revenge because he had impregnated her when they were young, but had successfully denied paternity by presenting two false witnesses. He married Matilda because she owned the general store, and Claire was forced to give birth to a child out of wedlock and to become a prostitute in Hamburg. Claire later tells Ill that the child died after being born. She says that she named the girl 'Geneveve' and she did not even open her eyes.

Mrs. Ill

Matilda Blumhardt is Alfred Ill's wife and the original owner of the general store. It is implied that Ill married her for the store, not for love.

Son

Ill's son, Karl, is initially seen going off to seek work at the railway station. By the end of the play, he is driving a new car.

Daughter

Ill's daughter, Ottilie, is first seen going off to look for work at the Labour Exchange. Later in the play, however, she is seen going off to play tennis, and takes courses for different languages.

Mayor

The Mayor of Guellen initially tells Ill that he is to become the next Mayor. As the play progresses, however, the Mayor informs Ill that the revelations about his past will prevent him from taking public office. Towards the end of the play, the Mayor offers Ill a gun, implying that everything would be easier if he would just shoot himself. During the play's conclusion, the Mayor sways the assembled audience in the auditorium of the Golden Apostle hotel to accept Claire's donation and to kill Ill.

Priest

Early in the play, the Priest is shocked when Claire asks him whether he comforts condemned men, stating that there is no longer a death penalty. Later in the play, when Ill seeks his help, the Priest draws attention to the magnificent new bell. At that moment, Ill realizes that even the Priest is playing a role in the fulfillment of Claire's condition.

Schoolmaster

At first he tries to entertain Claire during her visit by letting the children sing for her in various occasions. After some time he goes to Claire with the Doctor and asks her to not to require a death to save her hometown.He is shocked when Claire tells them that she is responsible for the economical situation of Guellen.Very sad, he gets drunk in Mrs.Ill's store and tries to tell the journalists about the multi-billionaires's condition, but is stopped by Ill himself. Later he apologises and tells Ill that he will join the others and that he will also want to kill him. He gives a speech in the theater room, but talks in such way that only the people of Guellen can understand what he means.

Doctor

Early in the play, Claire tells the Doctor that the next diagnosis he makes ought to be "heart attack". Later in the play, the Doctor, along with the Schoolmaster, implores Claire to help the town without requiring Ill's death. In the end, however, the Doctor participates in Ill's death, and pronounces him dead of a heart attack.

Policeman

The Policeman refuses to arrest Claire when Ill, fearing for his life, approaches him. The Policeman claims that there is no real threat. In the end, he forces Ill to remain in the auditorium so that he can be slaughtered, and calls him "a bastard".

Townsmen 1–4

These men are seen at the railway station, and also in Ill's general store. They symbolize the townspeople of Guellen, and also transform into the trees of Konrad's Village Wood.

Painter

At the start of the play, the Painter paints a sign welcoming Claire to Guellen. He bemoans the fact that he was once a brilliant student at the École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

. When the townspeople begin to enjoy a higher standard of living, the Painter arrives at Ill's general store with a portrait of Ill as a gift for Ill's wife. By this point, he is wearing the customary clothes of a painter: a beret and a colorful kerchief. When the Schoolmaster attempts to tell the press about Claire's cruel proposal, the Painter smashes the portrait of Ill over the Schoolmaster's head.

Bailiff

The Bailiff makes his one appearance of the whole play before the arrival of Claire Zachanassian at the beginning of the play. He is immediately recognizable by the citizens seemingly because he is the only man, since he goes into the 'Gents' toilets, who would ever get off at Guellen. He is at the town to plunder what he can as he is faced with the task of distraining the whole town, a rather satirical idea that shows just how great the towns poverty is especially when compared to the country's booming economy. His name, Mr Glutz, is ironic and is suggestive of Gluttony on the part of the richer part of the country taking from the poorer part. He is compared to a hawk when hunting out anything that he could take from their city. The mayor is relieved that he comes before Claire's visit as there is nothing for him to take then

Louisa

Louisa is a young woman who is engaged to one of the town's musicians. The audience first sees Louisa flashing across the stage half-naked. Later in the play, she crosses the stage wearing stylish clothing. In both cases, she is the subject of criticism by the townspeople.

Main theme

The author often emphasized that The Visit is intended first and foremost as a comedy

Comedy

Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...

. However, it is often difficult to ignore the serious and usually dark points being made about human nature throughout the play. A popular method of bringing up concerns important to German-language authors of this period was through their use of unsettling humour of this type.

The main theme is about how money corrupts even the most morally strong people.

Women's Rights

Women did not achieve full suffrage

Women's suffrage in Switzerland

Women's suffrage in Switzerland was introduced at the federal level for the first time after the February 7, 1971, voting in a proportion that was the exact inverse of that reported at the time of the February 1, 1959, voting ....

in Switzerland until 1971 (in one canton until 1990), alone with neighboring Liechtenstein, the only European country to limit women's voting rights at the time. Women still lacked voting rights when the author refashioned the play as an opera libretto for Gottfried von Einem (premiered 1971). The sham vote at the end, where Claire has no say, followed by the false ascription of the town's new wealth to Ill, highlights this injustice in Swiss society. Symbolically, Claire lacks a hand and foot – tools to control her destiny. She has been thrown by men into prostitution against her will.

Can justice be bought?

"The Visit" raises the question of the corruptibility of justice by asking whether it can be bought in return for material wealth. As a young man, Ill himself bought "justice" at Claire's expense by presenting false witnesses during the paternity suit that she brought against him. The end-result, for Claire, was a life that she would never have chosen for herself, and one for which she now seeks revenge.

When Claire visits the town, she offers an extraordinary monetary gift – but only on the condition that the town rectifies its past failure by putting Ill to death. In her mind, Claire equates Ill's punishment with "justice". The drama of the play unfolds as a kind of "proof" of Claire's assertion: that everything, including justice, can be bought.

In the past, Claire has purchased justice many times. Boby the Butler, for instance, was previously a judge in Guellen, but ultimately opted out of the profession in order to enter into Claire's personal service. The salary, he explains to the town, was so high that he couldn't refuse her. This foreshadows the town's experience with Claire's conditional gift: the gift is so generous that the sacrifice of personal and collective dignity is not too high a price to pay in return.

In an ironic inversion of Claire's decree, Claire has rescued the characters Roby and Toby, former American gangsters who had been sentenced to death by electric chair. She purchases each man's life, thus proving that her wealth is capable of altering the very essence of the American justice system.

It is important to note that the political institutions helpful in fashioning and enforcing an idea of "justice" in society are corrupted and rendered passive in "The Visit".

Prostitution

Prostitution is expressed in a number of different ways throughout the play. In the wake of her failed paternity suit, Claire became a prostitute and fell into a degraded state in which she lived outside of societal norms. She was branded a corrupt woman, and learned an intense lesson about the sexual marketplace: male sexual desires can be satisfied by wealth. In other words, sex can be purchased. The purchase of sex is a physical manifestation of power, and presses the one who is purchased into a corrupted, degraded state. For Claire's first husband, the elderly Armenian millionaire from whom Claire inherited her fortune, wealth was able to purchase a beautiful, young wife.

Now that Claire has risen out of her prostituted state, she attempts to turn the world into her own, personal "brothel", as she announces to the Doctor and the Schoolteacher at the beginning of the third act. Once, she was a prostitute, an outcast; now, she is the opposite: she hovers above society in a mythic, almost goddess-like position by imposing her own "rule of law" to exact her own idea of "justice" on the town of Guellen. She employs the lessons that she learned in the sexual marketplace: all desires can be bought, if one has the money.

The rule of law

The "rule of law" is what governs society; it lends order and shape to a culture by tending to the idea of "justice". The rule of law is something to which all citizens of a society submit, and it is generally understood to be imposed on the citizens by the citizens via governing bodies and the political system. Claire, however, arrives in the town of Guellen and immediately imposes her own personal version of "the rule of law". She interrupts the usual judicial process, and forces the townspeople to satisfy her personal desire for vengeance.

In the first act, the audience learns from the Priest that there is no capital punishment in Germany. Claire's gift, however, is conditional upon the townspeople's willingness to apply capital punishment to Ill. The townspeople collectively keep Claire's decree a secret, implying that they intend to eventually carry it out. Claire's personal, almost tyrannical "rule of law" has the effect of a secret extrajudicial proceeding. The question is whether the result of such a proceeding can ever fairly demonstrate "justice", given that the process lacks accountability and occurs outside of the generally accepted laws. For Claire, however, "justice" in the ideal - that is, legal - sense is not really the issue. Her idea of justice has been conflated by her desire for personal vengeance.

Vengeance as justice

In the style of the Old Testament, Claire's notion of justice has been transformed into the frighteningly powerful force of vengeance. "An eye for eye" becomes Claire's guiding principle: Ill forced her into a life that she did not choose, and in return she forces Ill into a situation that ultimately results in his death. Ill states early on in the play that Claire was formerly a lover of justice; now, however, having suffered injustice herself, she has little faith in the judicial process. Just as her love for Ill changed into something monstrous, her love of justice became a strangling fixation on personal revenge.

The fates of Koby and Loby illustrate Claire's view of justice. Like God in the Old Testament, she tracks down both of Ill's false witnesses on the opposite ends of the earth. Roby and Toby, her employees, blind the men and castrate them. Claire sentences Ill to an existence characterized by suffering and fear. Ultimately, the death that Claire selects for Ill is one inspired by the same material desires that drove her former lover to betray her in the first place.

Forgiveness

Even though Claire purchases amnesty for Roby and Toby in a kind of divine gesture of forgiveness, she is nevertheless incapable of forgiveness when it comes to Ill and the injustices he committed against her when he denied her paternity claim and married Matilda. The townspeople of Guellen also refuse to forgive Ill for the collective suffering his initial actions against Claire have caused them. Neither Ill's wife Matilda nor his children are willing to forgive him or offer him their support and protection. The drama implies that perhaps the only figure capable of forgiveness is Ill himself: by recognizing his own guilt and understanding both Claire's motivations and the motivations of the townspeople, Ill accepts his fate. He genially proposes a drive in his son's new car with the entire family, and sits in Konrad's Village Wood to share a few last, intimate words with Claire. He then submits respectfully to the judgment of the town, and in the end preserves an idealized image of himself in his own heart. The troubling aspect of the drama, however, is that the ideal dies with him; it is not an image that the townspeople honor, or even see.

Cold logic

The events in the drama unfold in a cold, logical manner that leads to a predictable outcome. Given the initial presentation of Guellen, Claire's power, the history between Claire and Ill, and the nature of Claire's decree, Ill's death appears almost inevitable. Just as Boby the Butler explains that he became Claire's employee because of the high salary she offered him, the townspeople convince themselves that Claire's offer is, in fact, impossible to refuse. The townspeople could have stood by their initial reaction to Claire's decree and preserved their dignity, but Dürrenmatt offers a cold perspective on human nature by demonstrating how Ill's death was, given the circumstances, the only possible outcome.

The townspeople of Guellen engage in a powerful process of rationalization before deciding to kill Ill. Throughout the play, they consistently – though never explicitly – justify meeting the conditions of Claire's gift. At first, they are repulsed by the idea of sacrificing a popular local figure's life in exchange for wealth and prosperity, but as their subconscious desires are fed by the slow rise in their standard of living, and once it becomes clear that Ill is the cause of the town's suffering, the townspeople come to the decision that it is just, fair, and reasonable to kill Ill. By slaying Ill, they will both appease a powerful figure and restore the town's well-being.

Dehumanization versus humanism

Claire's peculiar habit of giving each of her husbands (except for the first) and each of her employees rhyming nicknames suggests that she is systematically dehumanizing everyone around her. In a technique that recalls the Biblical "naming" of the animals, Claire renames each member of her entourage, thereby relegating them to a status far beneath her own and illustrating her relative power.

Claire's physical artificiality (as evidenced by her prosthetic leg and her ivory hand) reinforces the idea that Claire is "unkillable"; not quite human. As a prostitute, her status was not much higher than that of an animal; now, she has risen to the status of a god. Claire's identity raises the question of what is fundamentally human. Dürrenmatt expresses humanist ideals using the history of the town of Guellen and the character of the Schoolteacher. These values, while sincere, have little stamina in the face of someone as wealthy and powerful as Claire. In other words, Dürrenmatt appears to believe that as society becomes increasingly capitalistic, humanist ideals have little hope for survival.

Romantic love

Like "justice", romantic love is another ideal that Dürrenmatt exposes as weak in the face of market forces. Ill had initially chosen to marry Matilda rather than Claire for material gain. Claire's idea of love is further sullied by her exposure to men's sexual appetites during the time she spends working as a prostitute. Claire's marriage to an elderly millionaire only reinforces what she has already learned about men: sexual relationships have little to do with romantic love. This belief leads Claire to cycle through a comical string of marriages, suggesting the essential emptiness of the institution. In "The Visit", husbands are treated as little more than a consumer good.

Stereotypical romantic love in the story exists in a pastoral setting. Claire and Ill conducted their romance in the idyllic, nostalgic locales of Petersen's Barn and Konrad's Village Wood: perfect symbols for the beauty and innocence of their youthful infatuation.

Over time, however, Claire's love for Ill grew into an evil, monstrous thing. Filled with rage, Claire demands her own version of justice: revenge. Dürrenmatt reveals how deeply perverted her love has become with Claire's conditional gift to the town; ultimately, however, what she wishes is to take Ill away with her to an island in the Mediterranean Sea where they will be able to spend all eternity together. Her desire is romantic, but simultaneously monstrous.

The second act positions Claire and Ill in a perverse reconstruction of Shakespeare's famous balcony scene between Romeo and Juliet. In this scene, however, Claire stands on the balcony of her hotel with her newest husband, gazing out over the town, while Ill manages the general store below. The scene is no longer an expression of young love: here, the woman looks down on the man from high above more like a tyrannical queen than a lover.

Adaptations

The Visit is a popular production to attend for German language

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

students, as it is considered one of the keystones of twentieth century German-language literature. The play is also often used as a text for those taking German as a foreign language.

The original 1956 play by Friedrich Dürrenmatt was adapted for American audiences by Maurice Valency

Maurice Valency

Maurice Valency was a playwright, author, critic, and popular professor of Comparative Literature at Columbia University, best known for his award winning adaptations of plays by Jean Giraudoux and Friedrich Duerrenmatt. He wrote several original plays, but is best known for his adaptations of...

. Its first Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

production, in 1958, was directed by Peter Brook

Peter Brook

Peter Stephen Paul Brook CH, CBE is an English theatre and film director and innovator, who has been based in France since the early 1970s.-Life:...

and starred Alfred Lunt

Alfred Lunt

Alfred Lunt was an American stage director and actor, often identified for a long-time professional partnership with his wife, actress Lynn Fontanne...

and Lynn Fontanne

Lynn Fontanne

Lynn Fontanne was a British actress and major stage star in the United States for over 40 years. She teamed with her husband Alfred Lunt.She lived in the United States for more than 60 years but never relinquished her British citizenship. Lunt and Fontanne shared a special Tony Award in 1970...

.

The play was adapted as an opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

libretto

Libretto

A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...

by the author and set to music by composer Gottfried von Einem

Gottfried von Einem

Gottfried von Einem was an Austrian composer. He is known chiefly for his operas influenced by the music of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, as well as by jazz. He also composed pieces for piano, violin and organ.-Biography:...

, entitled Der Besuch der alten Dame
Der Besuch der alten Dame
Der Besuch der alten Dame is an opera in three acts by Gottfried von Einem to a German libretto by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, based on his play of the same name.-Performance history:...

and translated as The Visit of the Old Lady, and was first performed in 1971.

Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress who starred in a variety of European and American films. She won three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, and the Tony Award for Best Actress. She is ranked as the fourth greatest female star of American cinema of all time by the American Film Institute...

and Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn

Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

starred in a much-altered film adaptation, also called The Visit
The Visit (1964 film)
The Visit is a 1964 film co-production from France, Italy, Germany, and the United States, distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Bernhard Wicki and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and Julien Derode with Ingrid Bergman and Anthony Quinn as co-producers...

, directed by Bernhard Wicki, in 1964. A significant alteration is in the ending. Right as Alfred III is about to be executed on the trumped-up charges the town has created, the billionairess stops the execution. She declares that she will give the money to the town as pledged. Her revenge on III is that now, as she declares, he must live in a town, and amongst people, that would have executed him on false charges for money.

In 1988 a TV movie titled Bring Me The Head Of Dobie Gillis was a version of The Visit adapted to the characters and world of The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis is an American sitcom that aired on CBS from 1959 to 1963. The series and some episode scripts were adapted from a 1951 collection of short stories of the same name, written by Max Shulman, that also inspired the 1953 film The Affairs of Dobie Gillis with Debbie...

.

In 1989 a TV movie titled Визит дамы (The Visit of the Lady) was created in the Mosfilm studio (Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, at that time the USSR)

Senegalese director Djibril Diop Mambéty

Djibril Diop Mambéty

Djibril Diop Mambéty was a Senegalese film director, actor, orator, composer and poet. Though he made only a small number of films, they received international acclaim for their original and experimental cinematic technique and non-linear, unconventional narrative style. Born to a Muslim family...

's film Hyènes, from 1992, is based on the play.

A fairly faithful musical The Visit
The Visit (musical)
The Visit is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander.Based on Friedrich Dürrenmatt's 1956 satirical play about greed and revenge "Der Besuch der alten Dame," it focuses on one of the world's wealthiest women, Claire Zachanassian, who returns to her...

, with music by John Kander

John Kander

John Harold Kander is the American composer of a number of musicals as part of the songwriting team of Kander and Ebb.-Life and career:Kander was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the son of Bernice and Harold S. Kander...

, lyrics by Fred Ebb

Fred Ebb

Fred Ebb was an American musical theatre lyricist who had many successful collaborations with composer John Kander. The Kander and Ebb team frequently wrote for such performers as Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera....

, and book by Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally

Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...

, received its first production at Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

's Goodman Theatre, starring Chita Rivera

Chita Rivera

Chita Rivera is an American actress, dancer, and singer best known for her roles in musical theater. She is the first Hispanic woman to receive a Kennedy Center Honors award...

and John McMartin

John McMartin

John McMartin is an American actor of stage, film and television.-Early life and career:McMartin was born in Warsaw, Indiana and raised in Minnesota. He attended college in Illinois and New York. He made his off-Broadway debut in Little Mary Sunshine in 1959, playing opposite Eileen Brennan...

in 2001. That production was choreographed by Ann Reinking

Ann Reinking

Ann Reinking is an American actress, dancer, and choreographer. She has worked extensively in musical theatre, both as a dancer and choreographer, as well as appearing in film.-Biography:...

and directed by Frank Galati

Frank Galati

Frank Galati is an American director, writer and actor. He is a member of Steppenwolf Theatre Company, an associate director at Goodman Theatre, and a professor of performance at Northwestern University. In 2004, Galati was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame...

. The musical was revised and played from May 13-June 22, 2008 at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia, in a production once again starring Rivera with George Hearn

George Hearn

George Hearn is an American actor and singer, primarily in Broadway musical theatre.-Early years:Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Hearn studied philosophy at Southwestern at Memphis, now Rhodes College before he embarked on a career in the theater, training for the stage with actress turned acting...

. It received glowing reviews from the critics.

The Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

an telenovela

Telenovela

A telenovela is a limited-run serial dramatic programming popular in Latin American, Portuguese, and Spanish television programming. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão , and novela, a Spanish or Portuguese word for "novel"...

Romané loosely use some elements of the plot in the script. It gives the story a slightly happier ending, though; the main characters aren't fully reconciled, but they manage to sort out their differences before Jovanka, the Claire equivalent, leaves the town.

The Visit of the Old Lady (Vana daami viisit, 2006) is a faithful, dark adaption for TV from Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

n theatrical veterans Roman Baskin (director), Ita Ever

Ita Ever

Ita Ever is an Estonian film, radio, theater and television actress.Ita Ever began her career in 1953 as a stage actress and has appeared in numerous Estonian and Russian film productions...

(Claire) and Aarne Üskula (Ill). Tallinn

Tallinn

Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

, the capital of Estonia, substitutes for Guellen.

A Russian language

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

production, directed by Alexander Morfov, has been running in the repertoire of the Lenkom Theatre

Lenkom Theatre

Lenkom Theatre is the official name of what was once known as the Moscow State Theatre named after Lenin's Komsomol. Designed by Illarion Ivanov-Schitz, it was built in 1907 to house a Merchant's Club, and was home to many theatrical and musical performances...

in Moscow since 2008.

An adaptation entitled Miss Meena was performed in 2010 by Perch in Bengaluru